I recently unearthed old photos of me
with a mop of scraggly black hair and
a ***** smile on my face, the kind of
smile I used to give before sinking into
myself, twisting my face up to disappear
and reassess my insides, how was that heart
workin' out for you, sweetheart?

And years later I still feel the familiar jolt,
manage to think that I am too sloppy for
loving, I've always been a pallet of nudes
a swarthy child waiting to be as blue as
the sky, holding myself to a standard
physically impossible, people tell me
I'm beautiful and I still wonder why
if this is as easy as loving myself then
I want to know how,  I say thank you
with a hand over my heart to hold in
the little girls, who still wait in the middle
of empty classrooms for a partner, who still
envy the women that grew fox-glove petals
in the golden hour while I crouched in the
curly willow branches, semi-dormant
perpetually brown with too much skin
standing off the side because I was too
afraid to touch others,

too afraid of an olive complexion. Too afraid of being in this body.


When someone loves you, how will you know?
what will they do when they see my scars, the ones that only
show at certain times in certain ways? Under hot water and at
noonday? when will I be okay with a broken heritage, with a mexican
daddy who cut the ropes back to the village where I was supposed to
return to? And why do I feel like the winds and hot sands when boys hold my hands? Like I am burning up the rivers or smoldering beneath
the dry autumn brush in San Isabel, where only beetles and lizards congregate, a backboard baby with
an overprotective mother, carrying the strings I've tried to tie to others--

direct me home, sir.
direct me home, ma'am.

Tell me who I am.
tell me who i am